When the news broke out that Terry Pratchett dies on March 2015, I felt sad. I just gotten to know his works recently, and I just started to follow the Discworld series. Anyway, thanks to him, we have many good stories to read.
Maskerade is like the Discworld version of "The phantom of opera". Like "The phantom of opera", there's a masked man who lurked around the opera house and opera singers, in Maskerade, add two witches and it made the story much more interesting.
The protagonist in Maskarade was Agnes (who goes by Perdita X), a girl with a very good voice who was not so thin, who was also courted by two witches to join them. However, she didn't want to become a witch. So, she went for interview at a opera house and got accepted. The story started from here.
Maskerade is like the Discworld version of "The phantom of opera". Like "The phantom of opera", there's a masked man who lurked around the opera house and opera singers, in Maskerade, add two witches and it made the story much more interesting.
The protagonist in Maskarade was Agnes (who goes by Perdita X), a girl with a very good voice who was not so thin, who was also courted by two witches to join them. However, she didn't want to become a witch. So, she went for interview at a opera house and got accepted. The story started from here.
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| Maskerade by Terry Pratchett |
Well, initially there were three witches in Lancre. However, since one of them, Magrat became the queen, Nanny Ogg and Granny Weatherwax felt the loss because three was the right number of witches. So, they were planning to recruit Agnes. However, Agnes was not ready yet and went to Ankh-Morpork to find work in a opera house. Meanwhile, Nanny Ogg wrote a hugely popular recipes but the publisher didn't paid her enough. So, Granny decided to go to Ankh-Morpork to get back the money Nanny Ogg deserved and while being there, visited Agnes.
So, the two witches used some tricks to get into a coach and off they started their journey to Anks-Morpork. Along the way, Granny saved a boy by playing poker with Death and uncovered the true identity of the male opera singer who pretended to be from a foreign place.
For Agnes, she started to work at the opera house with a beautiful girl, Christine who was not a singer. But Christine had the looks. So, Agnes became the voice of Christine in the opera. Then, people started to drop dead in the opera house. The sightings of ghost became common occurrences. It added the pressure on the new boss of the opera house, a former cheese merchant. People were scared of the ghost. Initially, the ghost only demanded some harmless thing, like a opera box to himself. However, after that, people turned out dead.
Agnes decided to investigate herself and she was positive that Walter Plinge, a errand boy in the opera house was the ghost. However, she felt that Walter couldn't be the murderer, he was too kind for that. Meanwhile, Granny helped Nanny Ogg to get her money from the publisher. Then, they decided to help catch the murderer in the opera house. Granny pretended to be a rich patron of arts (using the money from the publishing deal), while Nanny Ogg pretended to be working at the opera. Nanny Ogg helped Mrs Plinge (the tea lady at the opera house, mother of Walter Plinge) to beat some thieves and took her place temporarily in the opera house to investigate what's going on.
Finally, it's revealed that the Director of the opera was the other ghost. He found out that Walter was the ghost and used the information to blackmail Walter and embezzled huge amount of money, when other people in the opera found out about it, the Director killed them to cover it up. That's why there were two ghosts showing up at the same time. One was the harmless ghost, Walter and the other was the evil ghost, the Director of the opera. Agnes and the witches found out about this. In the grand finale of the opera, all was revealed, the Director of the opera had a duel (sword fight) with Walter and died of shock (I guessed, Agnes mentioned that the sword was not even stabbing the Director, just stuck between the body and arm), so drama!
Granny sort of hypnotised (headologised) Walter. He only showed his true colours under the mask (love of music, drama, opera), without it, he was just a normal errand boy. Granny told him that he's wearing some kinds of invisible mask and he later become the new Director of the opera. And the male opera singer decided to go back to his true identity and met with his wife and now grown up son. So happy ending. And not to forget, Agnes decided to join the witches finally.
I think that Granny Weatherwax was the main person in this story, a very formidable person, a real badass. Hahaha!
So, the two witches used some tricks to get into a coach and off they started their journey to Anks-Morpork. Along the way, Granny saved a boy by playing poker with Death and uncovered the true identity of the male opera singer who pretended to be from a foreign place.
For Agnes, she started to work at the opera house with a beautiful girl, Christine who was not a singer. But Christine had the looks. So, Agnes became the voice of Christine in the opera. Then, people started to drop dead in the opera house. The sightings of ghost became common occurrences. It added the pressure on the new boss of the opera house, a former cheese merchant. People were scared of the ghost. Initially, the ghost only demanded some harmless thing, like a opera box to himself. However, after that, people turned out dead.
Agnes decided to investigate herself and she was positive that Walter Plinge, a errand boy in the opera house was the ghost. However, she felt that Walter couldn't be the murderer, he was too kind for that. Meanwhile, Granny helped Nanny Ogg to get her money from the publisher. Then, they decided to help catch the murderer in the opera house. Granny pretended to be a rich patron of arts (using the money from the publishing deal), while Nanny Ogg pretended to be working at the opera. Nanny Ogg helped Mrs Plinge (the tea lady at the opera house, mother of Walter Plinge) to beat some thieves and took her place temporarily in the opera house to investigate what's going on.
Finally, it's revealed that the Director of the opera was the other ghost. He found out that Walter was the ghost and used the information to blackmail Walter and embezzled huge amount of money, when other people in the opera found out about it, the Director killed them to cover it up. That's why there were two ghosts showing up at the same time. One was the harmless ghost, Walter and the other was the evil ghost, the Director of the opera. Agnes and the witches found out about this. In the grand finale of the opera, all was revealed, the Director of the opera had a duel (sword fight) with Walter and died of shock (I guessed, Agnes mentioned that the sword was not even stabbing the Director, just stuck between the body and arm), so drama!
Granny sort of hypnotised (headologised) Walter. He only showed his true colours under the mask (love of music, drama, opera), without it, he was just a normal errand boy. Granny told him that he's wearing some kinds of invisible mask and he later become the new Director of the opera. And the male opera singer decided to go back to his true identity and met with his wife and now grown up son. So happy ending. And not to forget, Agnes decided to join the witches finally.
I think that Granny Weatherwax was the main person in this story, a very formidable person, a real badass. Hahaha!
grt
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